How Sleep Impacts Your Mental Well-Being

This year, during Mental Health Awareness Week – 12 to 18 May 2025 – let’s take a closer look at something that plays a very important role in your mental health but is often overlooked or even sacrificed – sleep.

Denise iordache, a sleep therapist, has seen first-hand how beneficial and transformative good sleep can be for mental well-being. Unfortunately, many of us don’t give it the attention it needs, especially with our busy schedules.

If you’ve ever felt more irritable, grumpy, anxious, or overwhelmed after a bad night’s sleep, you’re not alone. Sleep and mental health are inter-connected, and improving your sleep may significantly improve how you feel emotionally and mentally.

Let’s further explore and break down this connection, backed by research, and look at practical steps you can take to improve your sleep and your mental health consequently.

The Sleep-Mental health link

Sleep is much more than just a time for rest. It’s a time when your brain works to process emotions, manage stress, and consolidate memories, amongst other functions¹. Without enough quality sleep, your brain may struggle to function properly, regulate your emotions, making you more prone to negative feelings. Studies show that sleep and mental health are closely linked. Let’s evaluate in a bit more detail here:

• Depression and sleep: Up to 90% of people with depression experience sleep problems, such as insomnia or, at the opposite side of the spectrum, sleeping too much².
• Anxiety and sleep: Anxiety can make it harder to fall asleep or actually keep you up at night, due to racing or anxious thoughts. While poor sleep can heighten feelings of worry and fear, creating a vicious cycle³.
• Burnout and sleep: Chronic sleep deprivation can increase levels of cortisol (the stress hormone), which can leave you feeling on edge and emotionally drained⁴.

So, this is a two-way street: poor mental health can often disrupt sleep, and poor sleep can worsen mental health symptoms. Improving one often helps improve the other.

How lack of sleep affects you?

When you don’t get enough sleep, it’s not just your energy levels that take a hit, your mental health may suffer too. Here’s how:

• Increased stress and irritability
  Sleep deprivation makes the emotional centres in your brain, like the amygdala, more reactive⁵. This means you’re more likely to feel overwhelmed by stress or even minor inconveniences.
• Difficulty coping with emotions
  Without enough sleep, the prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for decision-making and emotional regulation) doesn’t function as well⁶. This may make it harder to process emotions, leading to mood swings or feelings of hopelessness.
• Reduced resilience
  Sleep is essential for building resilience⁷ too. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from challenges. Poor sleep can leave you feeling more mentally fragile, making it harder to handle life’s ups and downs.
• Increased risk of mental health conditions
  Chronic sleep deprivation has been associated with higher levels of depressed mood, anxiety, and behaviour problems⁸.

The research says it all

Studies keep highlight the powerful connection between sleep and mental health time and time again. For example, research found that cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) not only improved sleep but also reduced symptoms of anxiety in participants¹⁰. While the Sleep Foundation reports that improving sleep quality can enhance emotional regulation, reduce stress, and improve overall mental well-being¹¹.

In summary, the available research in this field underscores one important point: improving your sleep isn’t just about feeling less tired. It’s about giving your mind the tools it needs to thrive.

Why is good sleep so elusive sometimes?

Getting a good night’s sleep can feel almost like an impossible task at times in today’s fast-paced, always-connected, digital world.  Some common barriers to good sleep that many of us experience are:

• Stress and worry: Worries about work, relationships, or life in general may keep your mind racing at night.
• Irregular schedules: Inconsistent bedtimes disrupt your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle, leaving you feeling out of sync.
• Lifestyle choices: Alcohol, and late-night snacks may interfere with your sleep.

The good news is these barriers can become manageable with the right strategies and support.   

Tip for better sleep and mental health

Taking steps towards improving your sleep doesn’t have to be complicated. Small, consistent changes can make a big difference. Choose one of the below tips and commit to it for a couple of weeks. The key here is to find out what works best for you and your lifestyle and practice it rather than seeing it like a chore.

Denise Iordache HDip.CBH

+ postsBio ⮌

Denise is a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist, specialising in helping women worry less and sleep better so that they perform at their best, both at work and in their personal life. She helps women build realistic, helpful, and healthy habits to tackle stress, have more energy and live joyfully.

Traditionally trained as a marketer, with a MA in International Business Communication, Denise spent many years in the corporate world before she decided to retrain as a Cognitive Behavioural Hypnotherapist. Denise brings over 18 years of corporate marketing experience into her therapy practice. Her background provides her with a deep understanding of the pain points her corporate clients are facing.

In her practice, she uses a combination of well-researched approaches and techniques (i.e. CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), hypnosis and mindfulness) to create personalised treatment plans to enable her clients to achieve their goals.

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